(il)legality

Before we moved to Mexico, I faced a lot of questions, mainly from students as to whether or not Dave & I would be "illegal immigrants". This caused many giggles around the minds of 16-year olds. Let me assure everyone once again that we ARE here legally. The governments of US & MEX know we're here; we pay taxes to both countries, and have travel documents.
Well....
David's legal at least.
David works for an international company who makes sure to follow the law. US & MEX taxes are taken out of his salary. He has an FM3 work visa, granting him permission to work for Nissan and to travel between the two countries at any time, via land or air or sea, for any (legal) purpose. He has to follow US & MEX law, but as long as he does that he is entitled to government protection - in court, for example, but also tax refunds and other monetary benefits. In the case of a major disaster, the US embassy would try to get us out quickly and safely.
I, on the other hand, work for a small, non-profit, religious organization that does not pay US or MEX taxes. I do not have a work visa. I have a tourist visa that expires every six months. Because I do not have an official job, nor do I pay taxes, I do not qualify for bank loans, credit cards, health care, or any number of federal programs, such as welfare, social security, unemployment, food stamps, etc.
Thankfully, I don't need any of those. I have a credit card, a mortgage, health insurance, and income from David. When we move back, I can re-enter the workforce as easily as anyone else.
In the meantime, though, I am relying on my husband for more than just financial security. While we're here, my entire identity is as his wife.

It's all about perspective

We had our second group of visitors this weekend. Our first group was only weeks after we'd arrived - they got here before our moving truck! While we were excited to host them, at the time we were little more than tourists ourselves.
This weekend, we were locals!
We knew how and where to drive to the airport, exchange money, find local food, find american food, use the metro, avoid the metro, create our own turi-van, cure stomach ailments, worship in English, shop for souveniers, program the GPS, and keep everyone safe.
We were so proud to show off my new hometown that I didn't mind translating every menu, reading every sign, explaining every idiosyncricity, and answering every question.
I was so prepared to cook American food that I was almost disappointed to eat out so much. We were so accostomed to Mexican food that we didn't mind eating some US staples.
We are now comfortable with our accents and our pale faces and confident of our security; enough so that we didn't mind walking through the city, bedecked in shorts and white tennis shoes, carrying cameras, and talking loudly in English.
Who cares?
I want to show more people our city - as much of the good stuff as we can fit in, and the unavoidable "bad" aspects, but definitely NOT the "ugly" side of the town!
But I am ashamed of how little our first visitors got to see. They saw a nearly empty house and a dirty city and a few US shopping malls and a very uncomfortable Dave & Kelly. Almost a year later, I hadn't noticed how comfortable we've become - in our home, in our car, in our own skin!
Comparing the trips really helped my perspective.

It could happen anywhere

My friend and co-worker, Claire, has had some trouble convincing her mom that this is a good place to be.
When she complains about Mexican traffic, her mom says, "you should just come home". When she wants to buy a car, but can't afford it, her mom says, "you should just come home". When she gets a cold or the flu, her mom says, "you should just come home." When the students are screaming and she works too many hours and even her weekends are paper-grading marathons, her mom says, "you should just come home."

Claire knows that even at "home" there is lots of traffic, and germs, and credit troubles. She knows that at "home" she may not have a job she loves, or great friends, or spicy chicken.

Her mom is coming for Easter, and that should help. But I'm afraid her mom will be all too willing to get on the plane and go back home.

BJ's bday

Benito Juarez was the first democratically elected Mexican president, and also the only fully indiginous Mexican president so far. As such, he has his own holiday - kind of like our Presidents' Day - where Mexicans get the day off work but don't really know how or what to celebrate.

We still had school.

But since no one else had school or work today, there was no traffic! We got to school is less than 45 minutes. After school, we went out for hamburgers and then drove through Mexico City to get home. That route has taken me from 2-3.5 hours before. We did it in 90 minutes, with a dinner break.

Which led me to say, rather egotistically, that "this would be an amazing city if it wasn't so crowded all the time!" Or in other words, if everyone else would get out, I would like it here so much more.
Of course, the 2nd largest city in the world would lose most of it's personality and charm without the constant traffic and pollution.
Or maybe not.

Illegal Immigration

It's a sad state of affairs when people who were born in this, the freest and most prosperous country on Earth -- instantly becoming U.S. citizens, no less -- with a free education and every other opportunity to improve their lives find themselves afraid to compete with a group of people who don't have legal status, often can't speak English, and usually have no more than a 6th-grade education.
My fellow Americans, stop your trembling. Show some dignity. If you don't like competing with illegal immigrants, try making better choices. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Turn off those TV shows that constantly bash globalization and immigration

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/13/navarrette.immigrants/index.html

Optimism

Yesterday, we introduced ourself to a young family who just moved to Mexico. The dad/husband is a Nissan employee that doesn't work with David. In any other situation, we wouldn't go out of our way to say hi, but we're in a very small group! This family just got here a few weeks ago, and just moved into a small condo. I wanted to offer some suggestions on getting to know the city and finding friends for the mom & her kids.
They wanted to complain. A lot.
They are only here for 14 months, so they didn't get a truck, just 2 boxes. They pulled their daughter out of kidnergarten Jan 1 to move to Toluca and live all together in a small hotel room. They waited 2 weeks for a car, 2 months for a house, and still haven't found a home.
This sounds really sad, at first. But then, you think.
It is unfathomable that they could have sold their house in Livonia, MI. So it's still there. They could have let Nico start work Jan 1, living in a small hotel room, and moved the rest of the family down March 1, after a house and a car had been secured. And the daughter is in preschool. It's not like she's missing intense fingerpainting.
Oh, did I mention - the family refuses to take even one spanish lesson. They barely can say "hola".
So they're miserable. Duh.

Then, we went to a lecture by an Australian woman who started the website expatwomen.com while living in Mexico City a few years ago. She wanted to encourage women to get out of their house and create their own job opportunities while they're living abroad.
Everyone there was very surprised that I work.
Everyone there was very surprised that we both speak Spanish.
Everyone there was very surprised that Dave came with me.
Everyone there was very surprised that we live in Metepec, rather than DF.
Everyone there was very surprised that we actually like Mexico.
The woman who gave the lecture said we were the most well-adjusted expat couple she'd met in a long time.

Why? Why do women follow their husbands to a country they don't like or don't understand? Why do women give up their careers and their identity to sit at home watching TV for months? Why is it so unusual to demand happiness and then work to get it?
Maybe it's bc we know that Christ has a plan for us, and that HE wants us to be here. Maybe it's bc God led me to this school and this job. Maybe it's bc our Christian faith taught us to be equal partners in this marriage.
But i had no idea that so many women were choosing to be miserable.

Time, Time, Time,

I was home sick on Tuesday (nothing serious) with too much time on my hands. I was sick enough to keep me from doing much of anything - shopping, exercising, cooking, organizing, etc. But I wasn't sick enough to spend the entire day in bed sleeping. So I spent too many hours realizing just how much I need to work. There was too much time to do nothing. There were too many shows on TV to motivate me to leave the couch. 9 hours waiting for david did not make me a happy or fulfilled person.

Then, this week at work became super crazy! Being gone for a day put me behind, but then grades were due, we had a teacher meeting, I need to propose curriculum for next year for Math and Social Studies, I led a research paper class for the high school, and musical practice starts about now. All in all, I'm working more hours than I have in a long time.

Living here has helped me see Time in a new way. Everyone has their own sense of "too much" or "too little" to do, but for me, I need to be busy without being crowded.

English, anyone?

MCCA is a very unusual school - we have about 35% korean students. Some of those students were born in Korean, but many of them were born in Latin America. So I guess they're Korean-Latinos? Very third culture kids. And they're really struggling with English. For some of them, English is their third language. They speak Korean at home and at church, Spanish in the markets - many of them have to translate for their moms throughout the city - and English at school.

We could use a group of high school and college students to come to MCCA the first week of August to lead an English VBS for about 3 hours every day. The rest of the day could be for visiting the city or doing other service projects. Anyone interested?

Kids having Kids

Teenage pregnancy is decreasing in the US, but it's still a major problem here in Mexico. In fact, the avg. age of first marriage in Mexico's rural population is 20 (meaning that half are teenagers!)
The government in Zacatecas state, inspired by a female governor, just passed new legislation to help them:
single and teenaged mothers will receive 650 pesos per month for 10 months, along with diapers and formula. This is about $50. That's right - $50 per month. I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to cover, but it's not much. Even Mexicans can't eat healthy food for that little money.
What the government is NOT doing is anything to prevent teenaged pregnancy - birth control is practically illegal throughout the country and sex ed in schools is very rare. The catholic church believes that every life is precious, which is fabulous, but that same church is not helping to raise the millions of unwanted children born every year in Mexico.

Zacatecas

We're in Zacatecas (that's "zach - ah- tay-cas") today and tomorrow. It's a very small town about 600 northwest of Toluca, a Unesco World Heritage Site with a beautiful downtown and an amazing history.

550 years ago, Spaniards discovered silver here, and that silver became the "pieces of eight" that filled Spanish treasure ships and floated around the world. for 3 centuries, the Spanish enslaved natives to work in very dangerous mining conditions (approx. 5 people died every day in the mines). Then, during the 1830s, dictator Santa Anna won a small battle here and celebrated by raping and murdering thousands of innocent civilians. In 1914, Pancho Villa won the bloodiest battle of the Mexican Revolution which led to the end of that war. The mine closed in the 1960s, and the local economy crashed. Today, there are as many "Zacatecans" in the US as there are in the state of Zacatecas - about 1.5 million each.

Today we rode a cable car up to the top of a local mountain to look at the town from a unique perspective. Tomorrow, we're going inside the mine and also to a "world-class" museum.

Whoo-hoo!

What you can do

We are hearing that many churches and church groups are cancelling mission trips to Mexico.
PLEASE try to avoid this happening in your church.
If you are concerned about security, try to fly into Mexico, rather than drive, or take a border crossing in CA, AZ, or NM, rather than in TX. Talk to the missionaries you'll be working with in Mexico to hire private security for the location where you'll be serving.
If there is absolutely no way that your group can come to Mexico personally, then please send the money you would have spent on the mission trip to the local missionary or mission board. In times of great financial crisis and political instability, the need for help increases.
Thank you.